Nightlord: Orb (62 page)

“That, I think, is one of the dangers of my experiments.  When I start opening gates to other worlds and looking through, I might wind up with a face-full of angry entity who doesn’t like to be disturbed, or something equally unpredictable.”

“And you’ve been doing this in the back of the van?” she asked, sounding odd.

“Not exactly.”

“Back up—whoa!” she cried, braking and veering.  She rolled down the window, shouted at another driver, waved a fist, made a gesture, and pulled back into her own lane again.  “Bloody amateur manual drivers,” she muttered, seething.

“Not everyone has your reflexes,” I told her, slowly relaxing my deathgrip on the handholds.  I tried to be nonchalant as I fastened my seat belt.

“Then they should bloody well stay on goddam autodrive!”

“I agree,” I agreed, and waited for her to calm down.  It disturbed me to see how rapidly her road rage manifested.  Then again, am I really any different?  I’ve stomped on the brakes while screaming profanity at a moron before.  I think it’s partly fear, partly anger.  Anger at the idiot, fear for one’s own life.

Huh.  Fear actually can lead to anger and anger lead to hatred.  Modern example of ancient principle.

“All right.  We were talking about universes and gates?” Mary asked, calming down.

“Yes.”

“You can open holes from one place to another.  What happens if you accidentally open one into outer space?  Or under the ocean?  Or inside the planet?  Do we get sucked through, drowned, or bathed in lava?”

“I can’t open one by accident.  That’s like saying, ‘What if you accidentally build a giant, planet-destroying laser cannon?’  It’s difficult to open a gate in the first place, staggeringly moreso without a portal—something to define the locus of the gate—at both ends.  That’s why I used the tunnel mouth and the parking garage.  Opening a hole the way you describe wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be like mowing the yard and accidentally shredding the hedge down to the ground.  You’d need one hell of a mower in the first place, and you’d have to screw it up in some really big way.  With the power available around here, I don’t have the mower for it.  I have to stock up for the logging machine.”

“Okay.  I feel a little better about this.”

“If it helps, I haven’t opened anything in the RV,” I added.  “It’s like drawing blueprints.  I haven’t built the machine, much less turned it on.  I’ve been drawing it, looking for flaws and ways to improve it, tearing up the old drawing, and starting again.”

“So, you haven’t actually been opening holes to weird places while we’re zipping down the road?”

“Hell, no!  That would be stupid and irresponsible—both of which I excel at, granted, but I try not to!  The only interuniversal hole I’ve opened so far was to send a message to T’yl.”  I grimaced.  “And now I have to gather power again before I can check the message drop.  Crap.”

“Okay.  We’re rolling pretty well—won’t power build up?”

“Yes.  The converters on the power takeoff from the road also help.  But it’s still going to take materially more power than we have.”

“Got it.  In the meantime… dinner?  Or do we need to find someplace to lay low?”

“I’m pretty sure we lost them,” I guessed.  “If they can follow us through that, they deserve to catch up to us.  Shall we walk down an alley?”

“First, we should get to Philly.  Then we can find a spot to park.”

“There’s parking in Philadelphia?”

“Of course.  At least, for anyone who can pay for it.”

“No wonder I never found a spot.”

Thursday, December 10
th

I’ve done my best to make sure Mary is up to speed on my entire history, at least as much as I can remember at a sitting.  I’m sure I’ve left out dozens of things because I didn’t recall them at that exact moment.  It’s surprisingly difficult to tell a life story.

Her office—what she calls her mental study, or her headspace—is quite well-developed, now.  Her magical studies are also coming along.  Mostly, she’s getting principles instead of spells.  I’m training her to be a wizard.  She can work on being a magician later, if she cares to.  There are advantages to both schools of thought.  Wizards are generally more versatile.  Magicians are generally more powerful.

My gate research has also come along nicely.  I feel fairly confident in my ability to build a gate, set it for a ton of physical and magical constants, and alter one tiny thing at a time.  Once I visit a universe, I can write down the particulars of it, plug those numbers into some of the subroutines, and drastically narrow the field of possible universes the gate will connect to.  All I need now is someplace to sit down and quietly work without having a hundred and forty-three vampires, magi, or law enforcement people show up to bother me.

I may have to go back to Karvalen to get some peace and quiet.  I find that ironic.  There are goddish entities and their followers in Karvalen who don’t like me.

I did open the magical gate tube again.  We were parked at a campground when I got it out to check for messages.  I checked under the bed and, yes, T’yl left me a message spell detailing the state of the kingdom.  It detected the gate and popped right through.  But while the tube-gate to Karvalen was open, I discovered an unintended side effect.  While the near end of the tube resembled a window into the other world, I failed to consider the other end.

Something emerged from the other end of the tube and plopped to the ground.

It was about the size of my fist and covered in spikes.  It had three legs, each ending in a three-pincered claw.  An eyestalk rose between the spikes on its back; it was a black, glittering, compound eye and resembled cut glass.  It hissed at me from some unidentified source and scuttled away with surprising speed.

First, I closed the tube-gate.  Second, I grabbed whatever was near to hand; in this case, a rock.  Third, I went after it like a cat after a laser dot.  It was fast, but not as fast as I.  I crushed it with the rock and kept crushing it until I felt I could safely leave the rock on it long enough to fetch Firebrand and incinerate the remains.

What really frightened me was the black blood of the Thing.  It was all over the ground and the rock I used.  It crawled onto my hands and soaked in.  It didn’t do anything obvious—I didn’t suddenly sprout spines or feel an urge to hiss or anything.  It behaved like regular blood, at least inside the confines of a universe.  It might have other properties outside a universe.  I am somewhat concerned about the unintentional absorption of Thing blood.

I know Things when I see them.  It was a creature from the realms between universes, the black, blank, empty places outside what we call space and time.  I hadn’t realized they came in such small sizes.  I also hadn’t realized their blood could mix into mine.  Usually, when they die, they evaporate or sublimate or whatever it is nasty Things do.  Either this one was of a sort that didn’t evaporate into nothing or the properties of this universe demanded it leave remains behind.  In Rethven, I’ve never been in a situation where uglified ichor crawled over to me.

I take that back.  During the fight at the Edge of the World, when demonic Things poured into the world through a breach in the barrier, I might have bitten a couple.  I wasn’t really at my best at the time, running as I was on a mixture of guilt and rage and loss.  Then there was the huge, slug-like Thing Bronze and I eviscerated and killed.  Some of its ichor might have soaked into my skin.  It’s possible I might have some demon-Thing blood in my system already.

Is that why my teeth are sharper?  Or why my eyes turn solid black at night?

I do not like this line of inquiry.

My tube-gate obviously needs some work.  If the back end of the gate is a hole into spaces outside the universe, something needs to be done about that.  I didn’t like the idea of letting even small Things loose in the world.  Mary didn’t much care for the idea, either.  Obviously, I need more refinement on my experimental tube-gate.  Something wasn’t working correctly, but that would wait.

With the demonic mess torched into ashes and some justifiable concerns about my hematological health, I played the message spell.

Overall, things are pretty good.  The most annoying thing going on is the princes—now merely “the nobility”—being restless under Queen Lissette, a situation exacerbated by the Church of Light.  Other religions don’t seem to be annoyed with the current monarchy now that I’m not there, but most of them wouldn’t mind a little bit of a shakeup, either.  Selling their support in any political maneuvering could be worth concessions in someone’s territory.  The Church of Light, on the other hand, seems firmly convinced anything I touched is corrupt and should be torn down, finely ground, and poured into a lake of fire.  The good news was their lack of political clout.  They’re merely another religion, now, not a secondary government.

On the plus side, T’yl was pretty sure nobody was actively trying to go out of the world to hunt me.  Gates are serious business, even for the specialists.  He thought it could be years before anyone started to go actively looking, but admitted the possibility of some small group being exceptionally motivated—my previous self was somewhat offensive.

Tort was another story.  Tort developed a spell to hide what she was thinking and feeling from the Demon King.  That’s not easy, since it involved a spell to not only hide her soul from the eyes of a nightlord, but to create an illusion to deceive one.  You can’t hang around the Demon King with your soul hidden from view; he would get suspicious.  Tort managed it, though.  She’s always been ingenious.

So she kept her plans and intentions well-hidden from the Demon King.  Since he could interrogate anyone, she therefore kept her plans hidden from everybody.  As a result, she was still the only person who knew the details of her exorcism spell and the effects it would have.

“Until you mentioned her,” T’yl’s ghostly image told me, “I thought for certain she was in the demon ball.  If, as you say, she is not, then I do not know where she may have gone.  She was never forthcoming with any information—only the essentials, and only to those to whom such information was essential.  If she had plans for what to do after she caged the Demon King, she did not share them.  Naturally, at your request, I will see if I can contact her.”

The ghostly image faded and vanished.

It bothers me that T’yl doesn’t know anything about where she is.  It bothers me more that Tort hasn’t tried to talk to him.  What if she really was inside that mirror, stuck there to be devoured by my dark side?

No.  I don’t accept that.  She’s alive, somewhere, and I will find her.

I miss Tort.  But what can I do?  I don’t have enough power to go back.  It’s also going to be awkward to bring home a vampire girlfriend in the bargain.  I wonder how Lissette will feel about me having an undead consort?  She was okay with Tort as concubine, but this makes it seem as though I’m acquiring a harem.

Maybe I already have a harem.  That is, maybe my darker version had a harem while it possessed my body.  I don’t think anyone’s ever said.  If there is a harem, are they lounging around and waiting?  Did Lissette put them to work elsewhere once the exorcism happened?  Or are they relieved they can go?  I really should ask.  Or am I better off not knowing?

Speaking of people trying to kill me…

It’s been almost a week and we’ve been all over the northeast—Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, all those.  We almost hit Canada by mistake; it’s big.  Nobody seemed to have a fix on us, possibly because we try to stay off the main highways.

We went through New York City, though, which was a terrible mistake.  Never do that on manual, especially with a trailer.  I didn’t have to get out and yell in anyone’s face, but
Bronze
wanted to.  That says everything I could ever need to know about the place.

Mary suggested Niagara Falls.  I’ve seen them, at least in passing, but actually having the time to play tourist around them seemed appealing.  We headed in that general direction.

Today, we left Syracuse behind us—I was driving—and Mary was stretched out the in the back, napping.  She came awake with a start and told me to turn.  Anywhere.  I did, taking a handy exit off the I-90 and winding up northbound on the New York 690.  I don’t think I caused anyone to wreck, but I’m sure I prompted my share of foul language along with tire squeals.

“Okay, done.  Now that I’ve done it, why?”

“Someone is after us.”

“News flash of the day?”

“No, someone is after us right now.  That looming sense of presence in my dreams.  I was barely asleep before it crashed down on me.  It was like a wave in the ocean, but it was all dark and angry, rolling in a huge breaker as it bore down on us.  Our little camper was about to go under and sink.”

It was a dream.  It didn’t have to make perfect sense.

“Hmm.  Sounds like someone found us,” I agreed, taking the dream at face value.  “Maybe I should sleep with you.  We might have the same dream.”

“We can do that?”

“How’s your internal office look?’

“Interesting.  I haven’t given it much thought.”

“So, I changed roads because we were about to be drowned in bad guys?”

“I guess.  I’m not sure.  Give me a minute.”  She pulled out her skinphone and did something to it.

“Can they track your usage?” I asked.

“Possibly, but I got this one during dinner in Philly.”  She worked for a few moments, downloading maps and storing them for later.  Then she turned off the phone and tossed it out.  Diogenes brought up the stored maps and she reviewed them.

“The I-90 is a toll road,” she remarked.  “Our plates won’t auto-pay as we go by.  We’ll have to go through the booth.”

“I figured.  So?”

“It also doesn’t have much in the way of exits.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s a long corridor of zero options.  This thing will go off-road, but only in a very limited sense.  It will get us to a campsite, but it’s not an ATV.  Once we’re on that stretch of I-90, we’re going to be on it for a while.”

“Making us a good target,” I agreed.  “But how would they know we’re here?  They should still be searching California and scratching their heads.”

“I don’t know.  You haven’t turned on your phone?”

“Nope.  And Diogenes knows to keep us off the grid.”

“Diogenes,” Mary asked, “do you have a scanner application?”

“For locating cyberspots?” it asked, through the vehicle speakers.

“Yes.”

“Of course.”

“I’d like you to check for radio sources—whether they’re broadcasting a cyberlink ID or not.  Can you locate the closest signal without broadcasting our own cyberlink identification?”

“One moment, please.”

“You’re thinking they bugged us?” I asked.

“We’re inside restaurants often enough.  If they found us, it stands to reason they would be better prepared.  I would also think they want to keep a lower profile than last time.”

“Firebrand?”

I didn’t notice anyone unusual, Boss.  Bronze didn’t, either.  We’d have told you if we did.

“Thanks.  Mary?”

“Diogenes?”

“There are intermittent signals from other vehicles,” Diogenes reported, “that are much stronger than other sources.  The closest source, regardless of signal strength, is traveling with us.  The antennas on the cyberlink are too close together for accurate triangulation, but the source appears to be somewhere near the front of the vehicle.”

“Thank you, Diogenes.”

“It is my pleasure, Madam.”

“Please take us back off the grid.”

“This function is a passive one and does not require broadcasting a signal of our own.  We were never on the grid, Madam.”

“Even better.”

Mary came forward and sat in the passenger seat.

“Well?” she asked.  “If we’re bugged, how do we find it?”

“I’m more concerned with what it means.”

“It means someone wants to find us.”

“It means someone already found us and didn’t want to jump us.”

“I don’t blame them,” she agreed, smiling.  I chuckled, then stopped.  How sophisticated are modern bugging devices?  If it’s a beacon to locate us, fine.  But could it also be a more traditional bug, listening to our conversations?

“Regardless, I’m hungry.  Let’s find someplace to eat.”

Mary looked at me oddly; we ate in Syracuse, not half an hour ago.  I pointed at my ear, then the front of the van.  She was puzzled for only moment.  Her eyes widened.  She nodded.

“Yeah,” she agreed.  “The pizza wasn’t quite all there for me.  Burgers?  Something quick, since there’s a disaster waiting for us on the I-90?”